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Lance's Charges: Kanto


A/N: Well kids, I made a pretty huge error when writing this chapter. I, for some inexplicable reason, thought that chikorita learned vine whip. However, since it's only a possible egg move, I hope you'll just go along with it. I briefly considered changing the chapter, but Vitisatoris' vines are just too important to remove. You'll see why soon.

As it turns out, I can't write a realistic child. I guess that's why I made them thirteen...

Readers, it's very rare for me to ask you guys for anything, but I'd appreciate a review every now and then. I really would like to know which aspects of this story are good and which are bad. Otherwise I can't really improve, right? So please, drop me a review, even if it's just a sentence or two of encouragement.


Chapter 2: Minnow Forest


Not all of the forests in Kanto had designated names, like Viridian, and the large, lush wooded area that surrounded Orpiment was no exception. Still, the town's inhabitants often referred it as Minnow Forest, for all of the young trainers that were forced to make it their first stop.

"I haven't seen a single pokemon yet," Lily complained.

"We're the ones to blame," David said. "It was stupid of us to keep our own pokemon out for as long as we did. All the noise they were making probably scared half the forest away."

"Sorry about that," Marcus said for the second time in less than five minutes. The mischievous Ignigena had been the cause of most of the noise, sneaking up on Apollo and scaring him into making a terrible racket and nearly setting a nearby tree on fire.

"Don't worry about it," David said impatiently. "And when you let Ignigena out again, make sure to let her know we're not mad at her."

Marcus offered David a grateful smile and seemed about to respond, but he never got the chance.

"There!" Lily shouted, pointing at the treetops nearby. "Did you see it?"

"Nope," David said, turning to Marcus only to see the other boy shaking his head in denial as well. "What was it?"

"A mankey, I think," she said, suddenly being very careful not to move. A rustle in the branches directly above them alerted all three to the pokemon in question, but it immediately vanished into the thick growth. "I see it!" Lily exclaimed, taking off like a shot after dropping her backpack to the forest floor.

David locked eyes with Marcus. "Go after her," Marcus said, "I'll keep an eye on your bag."

"Thanks, Marcus," David said, dropping his own pack and sprinting after his friend, one hand resting on Apollo's pokeball. The trees weren't too densely packed, and there were hardly any bushes, so David had little trouble keeping track of Lily, and actually managed to close the distance between them slightly as time wore on. His good luck wasn't meant to last, though, and bad luck took the form of a metapod dropping down right in front of him as he ran. Having nothing better to do, David grabbed it and skidded to a halt, pulling its sticky string down from the tree and onto his head before he could slow down enough.

"Metapod," the pokemon said monotonously. David took a wild guess and thought it might be angry.

"Sorry about that, but I've gotta go," David said, leaning the irritated bug-type against the tree it had fallen from and taking off at a slow jog. He initially found the string almost impossible to tear, but as he increased the distance between himself and the metapod, it seemed to lose most of its strength.

He stopped jogging soon after, realizing that in the heat of the moment, he had completely lost track of Lily. Knowing that her pokedex was in her bag, which was back with Marcus, David might have panicked had he not heard Lily's voice shout something incoherent from nearby.

Racing off to find her, David only had to go a few yards before she was in sight, having been hidden by one of the few dense groups of trees. The sight before him was an interesting one. The mankey-and it was a mankey-had its legs and tail wrapped tightly around a tree branch while its arms were cuffed together by Vitisatoris' vines. Lily was holding her chikorita and helping him pull the mankey slowly down, bending the tree branch more and more.

David was about to say something, but instead decided to go back and watch from behind the trees. This was Lily's fight.

Things took a definite turn for the worse almost immediately after he made his choice, though. The branch finally reached its limit and snapped, the sound echoing all around them and even causing a couple of roosting pidgey to take flight. The mankey was propelled straight at Lily and Vitisatoris at an alarming speed. Seeing that, it pulled at the vines with its arms, causing its body to flip so that its feet were the first thing that would strike them. Lily was able to step partially to the side, but the mankey still bounced off of her shoulder, knocking the girl over.

Luckily, she landed on her back, enabling Vitisatoris to jump up and grab the mankey once again with his vines before it could escape.

"Swing it into the ground, but not near anything it can grab onto," Lily wheezed, having had the air blasted from her lungs by the fall. Vitisatoris obeyed. This time one vine had managed to ensnare both of the mankey's legs, while the other had a firm grip on one arm. It looked a little awkward to see one vine extending several feet beyond the other as the fighting-type's body was smashed brutally against the grassy floor, but it was undeniably effective. Two smashes laid the mankey out, and by then Lily had recovered enough to toss one of her two empty pokeballs at it from her prone position. Even though the mankey was knocked out, the ball shook on the ground several times before coming to rest.

"Ugh, are all of these battles going to be so painful?" Lily asked, giving Vitisatoris a tired smile. "You did great out there, but return for now." The chikorita disappeared into the ball as David joined her in the clearing.

"That was awesome!" He exclaimed, pulling Lily to her feet and helping her brush herself off. "Even better than the battles on TV!"

"You really think so?" Lily asked, blushing from the praise.

"For sure! But I'm a little confused. I thought the pokemon we got from the lab didn't know any special moves yet, how come yours was using vine whip?"

"You know better than that, David," Lily scolded, falling into step with him as he turned back toward where he'd left Marcus. "The vines are a part of Vitis' body, he just doesn't know how to use them to whip things yet."

"Oh, right," David said, inwardly cursing himself for sleeping through one of the days they had spent learning about basic grass-type anatomy.

"I guess it's a good thing you chose a fire-type," Lily teased, leaning into him with increasing pressure as a tree approached, hoping to run him into it. Laughing, David stepped back behind her and only just saved her from falling down.

"Looks like you're more hurt than you let on," he said, giving her back an experimental poke and eliciting a wince. "Sorry."

"Don't be, that spot hit a rock when I fell," Lily said leaning into him again, this time for support.

David thought he had missed a turn at one point during their trek back, but when they came upon the same metapod from earlier, his fears were put to rest.

"So you just left it here?" Lily asked, stifling a giggle as the metapod that now rested in her arms glared at her friend. "Why not just capture it?"

"Thanks but no thanks," David said dryly. He was perched up on the branch that the metapod had fallen from. "It hates me, and I don't really feel like trying to make it change its mind. I'm ready."

"Fair enough," Lily said, shrugging and heaving the pokemon up with all of her strength.

"Metapod," it said in the same monotone, its widened eyes the only indicator of its alarm. David caught it cleanly, though, and was able to hold it against the branch long enough for it to produce more string shot, enough to hang independently.

"We should have used Vitisatoris for that," David remarked after jumping down. "We've been gone for a while, Marcus is probably worried by now."

"He doesn't strike me as the worrying type," Lily said. "Hey, can I see your pokedex for a sec?"

"Sure, what for?"

"Gotta see what this mankey is," she replied as he handed her the device. "Male. I wonder if I'll ever catch a female."

"Eventually," David said, recognizing Lily's lack of concern. She was just making conversation. "What will you name him?"

Lily turned to face him. "You mean what will you name him? I let Marcus name Vitis, so now you get to name this mankey. Make it a good one, some heroic guy with a beautiful wife or something."

"Are you ever going to name your own pokemon?" David asked.

"After this, I'll name them all no matter what you guys suggest. I just think it's weird that my best friend hasn't named one when someone else has, even if he is another friend." Lily looked up at him through her eyelashes. "Please?"

"Of course I'll do it," David said tiredly, turning away from her so he could think. Lily's mention of a beautiful wife had sparked several possibilities in his mind, but there was one hero above all of the others he knew about that valued his wife more than anything. "Odysseus."

"Good one!" Lily said. "I was thinking of him, but I couldn't remember his name."

"Glad I could help out, then," David said. They were getting close to where he had left Marcus.

"So when are you going to catch a pokemon?" Lily asked after a minute's silence, giving her friend a mischievous smile.

"When I see one that I want," David shot back.

"Not waiting for a dragonite, I hope," Lily said.

"No," David said, the mention of his favorite pokemon bringing a slight smile to his face. "But I'll get one eventually."

"You and Ian with your stupid dragon-types," Lily muttered. "Salamence this, dragonite that..."

David rolled his eyes as she trailed off, resisting the temptation to squeeze her injured shoulder.

They found Marcus after another few minutes of walking. He was sitting atop his bag, holding an egg twice the size of his head in his arms. Ignigena was sitting nearby next to a slightly larger-than-average pidgey.

"Where did you get that?" Lily asked, pointing to the egg in his arms.

"My brother gave it to me. He won't tell me what kind of pokemon it is, and I've never seen an egg that's just pure white," Marcus explained patiently.

"It looks pinkish from here," David commented. "Did you catch that pidgey over there?"

"Yeah, it just flew into the clearing and landed on that rock over there. It looked kinda spooked."

"Probably from that branch," David said. At Marcus' questioning look, he told the other boy about Lily's capture, including the pidgey taking off.

"My story isn't so interesting," he said with a laugh. "Ignigena took Aerius here out in a couple of hits and I caught him without much trouble. You guys want to take a break before we go any further?"

"Definitely," Lily said gratefully, pulling away from David and sitting down with a bit of difficulty. "Gonna sit, David?"

"Actually, I think I'm going to go over to where that metapod was. Maybe there are other bug-types around."

Lily made a face. "You really want a bug-type?"

If she were any other girl, David would scold her and insist that bug types weren't gross at all, but he knew that she referred only to the perceived weakness of that specific type. "Not all of them are weak. If pinsir and scizor can get the job done, then I'm sure I could train up one of the others to be that strong."

"Like that metapod?" Lily asked.

"Like just about anything other than that metapod," David asserted. "What do you think, Marcus?"

He shrugged. "I don't like most of them that much, but I don't see how that should affect you."

"The spot is more or less on our way, I think," David said, pointing in a direction that was much more east than south. "You guys wanna just catch up when you're done with your break?"

"Sure," Lily said after getting a nod of confirmation from Marcus. "Go on and catch something cool so you can show it off to your parents when we get to Saffron tomorrow."

David gave them a brief two-fingered salute and jogged off, back on the path he had just left.

While David was happy for both Lily and Marcus, a small part of him was jealous that he hadn't been the one to make the first capture, or even the second. He slowed down when he thought he was close, and it was a good thing that he did. Right on the path he had run earlier, a vileplume's flower could be seen coming up from the ground. Tiny bits of stun spore were floating through the air around it. Pulling out his pokedex, he carefully held it forward until it registered the pokemon and gave it a glance. It was relatively weak, for a vileplume, but it could still kill both him and Apollo without too much effort.

Giving the powerful pokemon a wide berth, David continued on, paying careful attention to his surroundings. He saw another vileplume lying in wait for prey, but it was far enough away from him that he didn't even find it necessary to scan it.

Soon after leaving the second vileplume behind, the tree came into view. This time the metapod was hanging in plain sight, right where he ran into it earlier. Sighing softly, he pulled out his pokedex and sent a message to Marcus and Lily, warning them about the vileplume on the path, something he should have done right after spotting it. With that done, he pocketed his pokedex and left his pack sitting on the ground. The pokemon most well known for stealing was mankey, and after the show Lily put on earlier, he very much doubted that there was another one left in the whole forest.

Even as he was approaching the metapod, David wondered why he was even bothering. It glared balefully at him with its one visible eye and looked about ready to risk using its pathetically slow tackle attack if he continued to bother it. A glance at his pokedex told him that the metapod wasn't going to be evolving anytime soon, so he didn't have to worry about any butterfree attacking him, at least.

"Meta," the pokemon groused threateningly.

"Oh shut up," David said, grabbing onto a low branch with both hands and hoisting himself up into the tree. There didn't appear to be any more pokemon in the tree, aside from a pidgey on the very top branch that seemed to be considering retreat, which didn't interest him much anyway. On an impulse, he looked back to look at the vileplume from before. The first one was too far away to make out, but the second...the second one was no longer alone!

Before he knew it, David was on the ground running as fast as his legs would carry him towards a likely demise, screaming his head off. Logically, he knew that even if he managed to save this weedle, some other innocent pokemon would fall prey to the carnivorous grass-type, but the idea of just watching while such a thing happened turned his stomach. He saw the weedle look up at the source of the shouting, but it must have just inhaled some of the spores, since the poor creature collapsed partially on one of the vileplume's petals.

Like some horrible nightmare, the vileplume's black body emerged from underground and turned to face its victim, hardly paying attention to the screaming trainer headed its way. It contemplated briefly which attack to use to cut the little pokemon into bite-sized pieces. Acid was by far the easiest, but it sometimes burnt away the juiciest bits. Its other option was razor leaf, which it had only learned through its parents, but the vileplume neither knew nor cared about that. It only wanted to eat. It leaned back and shot several cruel-edged leaves towards the helpless creature, but they never hit it. In fact, they passed right through the red light that the weedle had suddenly become.

The vilepulume turned just in time to see the pokeball bounce back into the hands of a boy, who caught it with a steady hand and replaced it on his belt.

David didn't give the pokemon a chance to think. He was running back to his bag as soon as the ball was safely on his belt. There was no time to put it on properly, so instead he cradled it with both arms and ran back on the path, a half-formed idea in his head. The vileplume, which was halfway to the bag when he got to it, tried to close the distance between them, but its little legs were unable to keep up with David's longer strides.

That was before they entered a sunny patch of land. Upon feeling that first ray of rejuvenating light, the vileplume's legs began pumping almost impossibly fast, and suddenly it was gaining on him. David had anticipated this, however, since he knew about vileplume's chlorophyll ability, and knew that he was almost to his destination. Sure enough, right before the forest was once again covered in shade, the other vileplume's flower still emerged from the ground. He ran around it, guessing correctly that his pursuer would be in too much of a hurry to spot its own trap from another source.

Not five steps behind him, the vileplume stumbled directly over its counterpart, but it was moving again a second later, as the stun spore hadn't taken hold. Unfortunately, stun spore was the least of the vileplume's problems, as its counterpart emerged from the ground looking furious. Torn between chasing the boy who had stolen its meal into the shade and dealing with this challenger, the vileplume decided that the newly vacated sunny spot would be a definite upgrade. All it had to do now was bump its challenger to another territory. Grinning evilly, the vileplume stalked towards its furious opponent.


~-~-~-~


At first, neither Lily nor Marcus could figure out what David was shouting about as he approached them. Marcus' first instinct was to assume he and Lily were being told to run as well, but an experience with an angry sandslash taught Lily that David's gestures in that sort of situation were very different.

"Holy shit," David breathed as he reached them, dropping his bag and collapsing on top of it. "If either of you sees a vileplume, let me know and then run for your lives."

"What are you talking about?" Lily asked, nudging David with her foot.

"I'll tell you later," David said, his voice muffled by his arm.

Marcus put down his pack and sighed. "Looks like we're taking another break."


~-~-~-~


Lily and Marcus agreed to give David half an hour to rest, but they hadn't counted on the additional fifteen minutes it took just to rouse him. By the time they were moving again (this time almost due south), Marcus was complaining that they might not even make it to Saffron before nightfall of the following day at the rate they were going.

"Theseus seems to like you a lot," Lily commented, smiling slightly as the bug pokemon crawled up and down David's torso while they walked, sometimes even going upside-down under his arms.

"Gratitude tends to lead towards affection," Marcus said. "And as if saving his life wasn't enough, he followed it up with a nice cheri berry."

"What pokemon could possibly resist?" David asked with a grin, scratching Theseus around its horn.

"I'm sure I could come up with a few," Lily said dryly. She still hadn't released Odysseus from his pokeball.

"Jealous?" Marcus quipped. Aerius was nestled comfortably on his shoulder, and appeared to be sleeping, if his rhythmic breathing was any indicator.

"Not really, Vitisatoris likes me just fine," Lily maintained.

"And so will Odysseus once you let him out," David insisted.

"I know, it's just..." Lily paused, unable to find the words.

"When you were battling him, he looked furious at you, right?" Marcus asked, recalling his conversation earlier with his brother.

"Yeah," Lily replied.

"And then you ordered Vitisatoris to hurt him, badly, right?"

Lily nodded shakily.

"And so now you're worried that he'll still look at you the way he did, treat you like an enemy. Or worse yet, you're worried you deserve it." It wasn't a question.

"How do you know all of that?" Lily asked. She looked about ready to cry.

"My brother said it might happen to us," Marcus said simply.

"Did he say anything about what to do about it?" David asked.

"Not a lot, he just told me to remember that pokemon battle each other in the wild all the time, it's instinctual. They'd probably be fighting even if we weren't there. Our job is to look out for our own, and to try and keep the wild ones from getting hurt too bad by anything we might encounter."

Lily smiled. It was a small, tremulous smile, but it was a step in the right direction. "Thanks, Marcus."

David wanted to say something, to offer Marcus his own thanks, but one look at Lily's fragile state told him that he was better off clamming up for now. Still, he hoped that Marcus knew how happy he was that all three of them were traveling together. He wouldn't have been able to snap Lily out of that. While he knew her better than anyone, he wouldn't have understood the problem in time without Marcus there.

"Thanks, Marcus," he echoed as they kept walking, his whisper breaking apart in the slight breeze and not even making it to his own ears.


~-~-~-~


"It's getting dark," David said unnecessarily, pulling out Apollo's pokeball and sending him out. Theseus looked curiously at the newcomer while Aerius swept its head under its wing to block out the additional light.

"Think we should get all of our pokemon out?" Lily asked nervously. David couldn't blame her for being a bit frightened, the fire from Apollo's tail lengthened the shadows around them and made the forest that wasn't reached by the light seem far more sinister than it should.

"No, but it's definitely time to start looking for someplace to make camp," Marcus said. "Want to split up?"

"We've only got the one light source," Lily pointed out. "There are ways around that, but none of them are nearly as easy as sticking together."

"I'm all for that as well, to be honest," David said. "Maybe we'll start splitting up once we've gotten used to the wilderness, but until then, we should keep close after dark."

"I can agree with that," Marcus said, deciding not to bring up his flashlight as a possible alternate light source. He didn't want to split up either, and had immediately regretted the suggestion.

So, they continued moving. There wasn't much of a trail, just a thin, unmarked path of grass that was discolored from countless individuals walking over it.

"There's a clearing up ahead," Lily whispered, spotting it seconds before either Marcus or David were able to. "But something's moving..." she trailed off and, once Charmander had reached the edge of the clearing, began retching violently. David and Marcus were each only barely able to keep from doing the same. Ahead of them was a pokemon carcass, a big one, at that. If any of them had been looking carefully, they might have recognized the skeletal structure of an arcanine. Instead, they were busy watching the nine rattata gnawing away at the few bits of remaining flesh.

"Time to find a new campsite," David said, coughing into his arm in a vain attempt to block the putrid odor.

"Too late," Marcus said. He was right. Rattata, being primarily nocturnal, were very sensitive to light, so Apollo's flame was like a beacon to them. What was worse, it was an unwelcome beacon.

"Send everyone out!" David called, but his command was a waste of time. Ignigena, Vitisatoris and Odysseus all emerged, the mankey looking extremely confused. Not having any time to waste, Lily bent down to whisper into his ear while waving at Vitisatoris to help Apollo, who was being surrounded by four of them.

"String shot!" David ordered, and Theseus did his job to perfection from his perch on David's shoulder. Three of the rattata slowed noticeably, but there were still many more. Apollo and Vitisatoris were grappling with two each, and meeting with moderate success. Ignigena and Aerius were doing very well against single opponents, but that left two rattata unchecked. One of them jumped at David, knocking Theseus down to the ground, while the other suddenly found itself defending against a furious Odysseus.

It was bedlam. Each trainer barked rapid-fire orders at his or her pokemon and didn't even have time to check to make sure that the orders were being followed. A well-aimed poison sting from Theseus hit the rattata that had gone after him, but the other three were speeding up. David took matters into his own hands and kicked one of them clear across the clearing. It bounced a couple of times before coming to a stop, but then it was on its feet again and advancing towards Odysseus, who was closest.

Lily saw what was about to happen, though, and ordered her mankey to swing its current opponent around behind him and into the newcomer. She was too far away to hear the soft thump of flesh hitting flesh, but she knew that the attack had been worthwhile when one of them came away with a slight limp.

David pulled his leg back to kick a second rattata when the third jumped onto his calf and bit down. Hard. The leg buckled and he let out a cry of pain, only just having the presence of mind to swat away the second rattata's attempts to get at his face. He felt a slight breeze rush over his face and realized that his opposition had just been halved. A look around revealed Aerius hovering over its new opponent, its previous foe lying sprawled and unconscious on the other side of the clearing. Turning his attention back to the one trying to gnaw off his leg, David grabbed it by the scruff of the neck with one hand and forced its jaws open with the other. He barely pulled his hand away in time to avoid being bitten again. Growing impatient with the pokemon, David shook it violently and then punted it twice as far as the kicked one had gone. He didn't see where it had fallen, but doubted that it wouldn't rejoin the fight.

Apollo and Vitisatoris, meanwhile, had been doing all they could just to keep their opponents at bay. The charmander grappled with one and kept his tail in the other's face. It meant that he couldn't attack all that effectively, but he had only received a couple of scratches for his trouble, and the rattata were, if anything, tiring faster than he was. Vitisatoris had been using one vine on each foe, usually just tripping them up while remaining out of reach himself. His job had become much easier after he managed to poke one in the eye, but he still couldn't risk getting close enough to use an attack, and individually, his vines couldn't realistically do that much damage to separate foes.

Having fully recovered from his fall, Theseus lunged forward and landed another poison sting in the rattata's face, shattering the pokemon's last remaining shred of confidence. It fled as soon as it could and Theseus began to blanket Vitisatoris' foes with string shot at David's behest.

"Ignigena, help out Odysseus at the far end! He can't grapple with two at once," Marcus called finally risking a glance at his friends. They seemed to be back in control, the momentary panic of such a chaotic battle having subsided. Lily had been coaching back and forth between Vitisatoris and Odysseus, but now she focused all of her attention on the mankey, seeing that Theseus was going to be there to aid her chikorita momentarily. David was shouting orders, helping his charmander through the tough fight while trying to step over Vitisatoris' vines to help out physically. Marcus knew, as David and Lily both did, that trainers were not, strictly speaking, supposed to interfere in a battle so directly. Still, this had been a desperate situation. Had he been closer to David, he would have helped him fight off the ones that attacked him earlier.

A loud thump echoed in the clearing as Odysseus slammed his foe into the skull of the arcanine, knocking it out. He immediately jumped on top of the back of another rattata-the one that Apollo had been holding at bay with his tail-and began to pummel it from above with all five of his limbs.

Apollo used his sudden freedom to his advantage, pushing his foe back before firmly shoving his tail flame into the pokemon's face. The rattata squealed in pain and surprise, temporarily drawing the attention of all of the other fighters. It scampered away hastily after that, and all of the remaining rattata that could move freely followed it as quickly as they could.

"Everyone ok?" David asked, sitting down and motioning for Apollo and Theseus to join him.

"Everyone but you," Lily observed, pointing his leg out to Marcus.

"Your injury is the worst out of any of us, none of the pokemon got anything worse than a few scratches," Marcus said, looking slightly ill at the sight of the blood running down David's leg.

"Odysseus and Apollo got the worst of it, besides you," Lily said, squinting at each of the pokemon in turn. "Just a few scratches, really, they all seem ok."

"They'll all be pretty beat in the morning, though," David said, briefly toying with Theseus' pokeball before recalling him. "Sorry Apollo, but we still need you to help us make camp for the night."

Marcus recalled Aerius, citing poor night vision as the cause, but the rest of the pokemon remained out.

"So what do you think killed that arcanine?" Marcus asked, breaking the silence.

"Old age, hopefully," Lily said.

David stayed silent. He hadn't thought anything of it when he had first spotted the skeleton, but there had been several cracks on the arcanine's skull, as well as on a few of the other big bones he had seen. One thing that he was fairly sure had not killed the large fire-type was old age.

"Key!" came the call from above, startling everyone but Lily, who had told Odysseus to search a nearby area. He led them to a fire pit, one that hadn't been used in a while, but was still clearly functional. Lily and Marcus started gathering firewood while the pokemon looked for berries and other things nearby that might be edible.

An hour later, they were all asleep, having eaten their fill of freshly picked berries. There had been a few mushrooms as well, but even the pokemon seemed leery about eating them, so their trainers had decided against it as well.